Threads running in my brain

Remastersys Distro size Greater than 4GB

2012-08-21T13:30:00.002-07:00

Yes, you have read it right. I had started hunting down the forums and several websites to work out a persistent issue with remastersys - that doesnt allow creating Ubuntu distribution of size over 4GB. Or rather Remastersys wouldnt allow a backup of size more than 4GB. This issue has intrigued me for a long time and it has given me good pain for a long time. But I tried to manage by trying to remove a few packages marking them down by size and trying to get it to just under 4GB. You can't imagine my frustration when the size shown would be 3.9GB but the final distribution size would be in bytes over 4GB; making the iso image step fail in the last step. So I set out last weekend to try to make it work and get rid of the pain forever. Before you drop your jaws and raise your eye brows wondering on what the heck does my system have - it has all the latex fonts support and hadoop framework tools installed.

Everyone knows that Remastersys is a tool that easily allows one to create a distribution of the linux system installed. I often get requests from my friends who would want all the tools that I have installed into their system as it is. Or put it in another way, I use remastersys to install linux into my friends laptop so that they have all the Skype etc tools already there and they wouldnt have to go through the pain. For any help with remastersys, kindly refer to the website: http://www.remastersys.com/.

Before you embark on the next steps, I would like to give you some cautionary notes. This is just my experiment and I dont guarantee that this stuff works for you or this will not cause any damage to your systems. All you do is at your own responsibility.

Please follow these steps carefully and if you have any question, kindly put a comment to me via twitter: http://twitter.com/kabeerahmed.

First create a distribution of your own system using the command: sudo remastersys dist
The first step will take quite a while guessing that you are about to create a distro size of more than 4GB. Allow the process to complete. When the process is complete, you will get an error that iso image couldnt be created as the size of the file according to iso9660 cant be larger than 4GB. Ignore this error. This is the error that we are going to tackle further down.
Take a USB stick. Mine is 8GB and my distro size comes to about 6.8 GB.
The usb sticks are generally recognized as /dev/sdb. If you are not sure then use gnuparted to find out what the mapping.
Run gnuparted. It will present a menu entry on the top right hand corner. You could easily figure out that it first shows your laptop harddrive. Click on that and you will have an option to choose the usb stick. The drive letter is easily listed there to be: /dev/usb. There are other easy ways to find out the drives mapped using command line but I am writing this guide for a novice linux user in mind :).
For me this drive is /dev/usb/
Format your usb drive to ntfs. Remember that FAT32 will not work because the FAT32 partition has strict limitation that none of its file sizes can be more than 4GB. You may have to first unmount the device within gparted by right clicking on the partition entry like /dev/sdb1.
Once the USB is formatted, you may have to remove it and insert it again to make the folder visible.
Now install the grub4dos. Grub4dos is like a zip file. Unpack it in folder on your local drive. I am guessing that you have unpacked the zip file into a folder grub4dos on your local drive.
Get into the folder grub4dos by using the command (without quotes) 'cd grub4dos/'
'sudo ./bootlace.com /dev/usb'
'cp grldr /media/USB-STICK-FOLDER'. Type 'cd /media' and then press TAB key. You will be presented with options that will show you how the usb stick is mounted in your local PC.
'cp menu.lst /media/USB-STICK-FOLDER'.
In the above steps without using cp commands, you can even use copy the stuff from one folder to the usb folder using the folders.
Remastersys generates a few files while creating your own distribution. All the files that we need to be concerned with are in the folder: /home/remastersys/remastersys/ISOTMP/casper
There will be about 6 files. You can copy 5 files without being super user. Try to drag and drop those files into the usb root folder where you just copied the menu.lst.
To copy the file: vmlinuz you will need super user permissions that you can do using the command: 'sudo cp /home/remastersys/remastersys/ISOTMP/casper/vmlinuz /media/USB-STICK-FOLDER/'
Note the file filesystem.squashfs would be larger than 4GB depending on your local pc installation. So it will take a great deal time.
Now open the menu.lst file and add an entry pointing to your local files. You could plainly copy the below text if you would want to:

title Ubuntu Customized

find --set-root /initrd.gz

kernel /vmlinuz boot=casper live-media-path=/ ignore_uuid

initrd /initrd.gz

boot

Now gracefully unmount the usb stick from your laptop and reboot the laptop setting the option in bios to boot the usb stick first. I have seen that sometimes the usb stick doesnt boot even if you have followed all the steps meticulously.

Try to login to your existing Ubuntu distribution and run gnuparted again. Try to set the boot flag again on your usb drive. This has helped me.

Once the USB boots properly, you will notice that you will be presented with a time out option. Press the any key... I press the arrow key on keyboard and then you are presented with menu with loads of items. Just find out your entry .. for example, according to entry above I would search for Ubuntu Customized. Press it and Ubuntu will run as if you are running a live cd.

I havent tried out making an iso out of this and distributing it to friends via dual layer dvd. But I guess we could do that too using dd to make an iso of the folder. Let me warn you that I havent tried it... lest you waste your dual layer dvd with capacity of upto 8GB.

Hope this helps.

Ubuntu 9.04 | Jaunty

2009-06-13T14:01:00.000-07:00

Ok. Here is my take with the Ubuntu 9.04 on the laptop.

Sound was a great pain. Couldnt get it to work for a long time. Finally had to compile alsaconf installing libncurses and other dependancies that came along. There were loads of blogs telling me valid reasons for alsaconf being pushed out of Ubuntu 9.04 but that did the trick for me after almost 7 hour struggle.
Skype was not recognizing my Logitech WebCam. Finally got it to work with the cute below script.

#!/bin/sh
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /usr/bin/skype

Solaris 10 Vs Linux

2009-03-27T03:32:00.000-07:00

I should have clearly written Solaris 10 vs Redhat Linux. Sun has come up with a very detailed white paper on the cost advantage comparison between Solaris & Linux. This whitepaper puts down Linux use on the server side with interesting facts (that I didnt understand all of them).

I had used Solaris 10 on the desktop for a couple of months. But it was increasingly becoming difficult with lack of applications that Ubuntu or any other desktop linux has today i.e. for GoogleTalk etc. So I didnt like Solaris on the desktop that much and uninstalled it. Now I have been using Ubuntu for quite sometime and I am in no mood to leave it.

This paper should be a great starting point to find out how Redhat will stand up to the challenge from Solaris and get Linux to the prime-time.

https://www2.sun.de/dct/forms/reg_us_1612_443_0.jsp

Though I dont use Solaris, it is a company inline with Yahoo! & Google that have always been close to my heart.

HSMP UK Rules Change.

2009-03-14T14:57:00.001-07:00

Effective March 31 2009, HSMP rules for engagement into the UK are going to change.

Highlights:

Earnings for people applying from outside UK should be minimum £20,000 (approximately around INR 15,00,000/-)
People with out a Masters degree will not be able to apply for HSMP from March 31, 2009.

For someone trying to stay immune from the recession effects that can have an impact on their employers need to make use of this opportunity within March 31, 2009.

The original document can be found in the link: http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/newsarticles/changestothepbs and refer to the attachment in the link: http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/news/ruleschange090309wms.pdf

I am not an expert in this area. Please use your reading skills to analyze things further and make your own decisions.

Ubuntu 8.10 Upgrade

2009-01-10T12:23:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to start the new year with a Linux upgrade. Today I upgraded to 8.10. When system boots up, I got a message 'Signal Over Range'. Read the whole monitor manual thought I knew from the top of my head that my monitor at max could do 1024x768. It seems the default resolution for X Server is now 1200x800. This caused me a pain in the neck as this issue had started last week with 8.04 randomly.

Got to google a lot towards different solutions and finally the below changes in xorg.conf did the trick. The changes are highlighted in red below.

I wonder how a common man is going to make it to the solution. This will make Ubuntu installation only possible to experts or to the linux users who have been fiddling with installations for quite sometime.

$ vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
 HorizSync         31-59
 VertRefresh 56-74 
EndSection

Section "Screen"
 Identifier "Default Screen"
 Monitor  "Configured Monitor"
 Device  "Configured Video Device"
 DefaultDepth 24
 Subsection "Display"
  Depth  1
  Modes  "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
 EndSubSection
 Subsection "Display"
  Depth  4
  Modes  "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
 EndSubSection
 Subsection "Display"
  Depth  8
  Modes  "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
 EndSubSection
 Subsection "Display"
  Depth  15
  Modes  "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
 EndSubSection
 Subsection "Display"
  Depth  16
  Modes  "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
 EndSubSection
 Subsection "Display"
  Depth  24
  Modes  "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
 EndSubSection
EndSection

Online Bank Fraud

2008-11-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

This was a very unusual weekend for me. On saturday afternoon a phone call from my bank asking me if I was in New York. They had detected unusual activity of my groceries shopping in USA and at the same time a fraudster had been withdrawing money in sums of $500. Altogether on friday night and by saturday afternoon, he had withdrawn about £2000/- worth of dollars.

I was just shocked and I still feel that the fraudsters had been monitoring my bank account and they knew when I got my pay check. It is quite surprising to understand that the fraudsters are so advanced that they are creating cards that can fool the atm machines in other part of the globe.

I do not want to name the bank as this is possible with any other bank. But still I feel that banking with American based banks are more risk prone to fraud as USA is the place where all the genius brains either the software professionals themselves or these fraudsters put in to hack the most secure systems.

Before all my concerned friends jump to their emails and phones for their inquiries, bank is going to send me a fraud form where in I need to putup all the details of the fraudulent transactions and return the form back to them. After that the bank has instructed me that they will be putting up all the money again into the bank. On the another note, I am pretty sure that bank will do all its due diligence in tracking the idiots and getting them behind the bars.

This is another reason why I advocate the strong move towards Linux (Ubuntu). Now that I have installed Ubuntu 8.10 and I have also installed the ecryptfs - utility that encrypts the directory and makes sure that even if the hard disk is stolen, none other than your own self is able to see the contents of the folder. I still have not ventured in to understand what will happen if the user himself forgets the password. My passwords atleast are only known to my wife.

Quick instructions on how to install and use ecryptfs.

sudo apt-get install ecryptfs-utils
ecryptfs-setup-private

There is a directory that gets created with the name of Private. I have moved all the folders under the home directory into the Private directory that gets created.

Though I have been thinking that Linux is the most safe and secure with the viruses, this action has prompted me to first time install the anti-virus software available for Ubuntu. I just did an install of ClamAV for Ubuntu by following the command below:

sudo apt-get install clamav

Once this is installed, run the command:

clamscan -r

For simplicity, try to give the below command:

clamscan -r /home >> scanDate.txt

Once you open the scanDate.txt, you can find all the status about the results of the scan. The end of the file has all the results about the number of infections detected. I have not tried to scan the windows folders.

Update:

After a hassle of 2 weeks, the amount was finally credited into my bank account. I was curious to know where the fraud actually occurred but the bank said that they can never disclose the investigation result.

The various reasons that might have happened are:

A high tech wireless attack when I was using the debit card at a Shell Petrol pump stealing the data when it is being transferred from pump to the server.
A tampered cash point which has read the details.

Over all, this is a very highly organized crime. The only steps that one can take to prevent this fraud:

Use Linux
Keep minimal account in the disposal account and move the rest of the amount into the saver account. UK has a saver account and the amount in the saver account is not reflected on the card.
Check your bank account details as frequently as possible
Never open the bank accounts outside your work or home pcs i.e. on publicly used computers

Grandstream 486 Configuration

2008-09-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

The manual of this GrandStream product doesnt show the exact and easy details to configure this piece.

I have followed the instructions in the website: http://www.voipvoip.com/grandstream-486/

For ease and convenience, I have copied those instructions here:

Grandstream 486 VoIP settings & configuration Guide

Grandstream 486 is a router and ATA adaptor with a WAN, LAN interface, PSTN and POTS line enabling you to use a traditional phone or fax machine as a SIP enabled IP device. The PSTN line (FXO) is not usable via SIP. It only used as a fallback for power failure. This device includes a NAT Router for your home or small office.

STEP 1

Connect an Ethernet cable from your PC to the Handytone 486 LAN port. Make sure that your PC Ethernet Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is set to “Obtain an IP address automatically” .

STEP 2

Go to any browser equipped computer on your network and enter the address: http://192.168.2.1

STEP 3

You will be prompted to enter a password, the default is "admin", then click the "Login" button.

STEP 4

Plug in an Ethernet cable from your Cable or DSL modem into the WAN port of the Handytone 486.

Ubuntu Studio 8.04 on my Toshiba Satellite M45 Laptop

2008-08-17T12:40:00.001-07:00

I have been working with the Ubuntu installation on my laptop and I went through a couple of fixes that quickly got everything right.

First thing was that the generic i386 kernel couldnt work smoothly with my usb keyboard and usb mouse. Only one of them would work perfectly. So I installed Ubuntu Studio that has 2.4.6.24-19-rt and everything works like a cake. I didnt know the exact reason for this but the only reason I installed this was by accident to find some drivers to listen to music online.

Sound in flash was not working. This got fixed with the below command.

sudo apt-get install libflashsupport

Sound was not working and I fixed it with below command.

sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils reset

Voice chat with Google talk was not but Empathy solved this too. There are loads of pages that guide you through the installation of Empathy on Ubuntu.

I followed the link below:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=819046

Update 1: November 16th 2008:
There is a package known as linux-rt that needs to be installed. This package has had all the features I always required:

Perfect USB support on my laptop. My laptop wouldnt support usb key board + mouse without this package. Eg: linux-2.6.24-generic had this issue and the package linux-rt solved it through the installation of kernel linux-2.6.24-rt.
I have upgraded to Ubuntu 8.10.

Should you buy Cars for Friends?

2008-07-29T02:07:00.001-07:00

The straight forward answer to the question above is NO!. I mean a big NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.......

If you feel curious and interested, please read on.

I have a friend A. About 2 years ago, I had bought a 8 year old VW Passat for him at a shy price of £2350/-. To this day the car runs well and there are no complaints.

About a month ago he put me to this friend B who was in search of a car. Coincidentally (Ittefaaq) I took my car to a garage to get the gaiters for my 15 year old car replaced. My eyes fell on a Audi A4 about 6 to 7 years old having done 120k miles, looked clean from outside. Did my usual engine checks - letting it run in the idle for a couple of minutes, seeing if the oil cap smells the water mixing into the oil, didnt find any white trace on the oil cap, took it for a ride for about 3 miles without noticing any strange noise, when returned it still didnt show any fault. So I had this person B in the back of my mind and this car in the back of my mind. Over the weekend I just told A that there is a car worthy of purchase. When I had first seen this car the dealer had quoted £3500/-

I took B picking him up from the train station to the garage - did a second check of the car, took B and his wife around in the car for a second ride and dropped them back to the train station. I didnt again ask for the price as the price had already been known to me. I took another car expert friend of mine for his opinion & he too did almost similar checks and when we started to discuss about the price the dealer suddenly put it to the £4000/- price saying that he was quoting that price for another car earlier. So I first got confused. I understand the tricks of the trade when the dealer put up the price seeing the interest we had already shown in the purchase. I called B and apparently he agreed for the purchase as I told him that the car is worth the purchase looking at similar cars from www.autotrader.co.uk which are of similar age, have done similar miles.

Ok we bought the car - hurray! I took the car to the house of my friend driving about 70 miles (as he was a new driver). I returned home in the train with my wife after going around London for sometime.

The next day B found car smoking when it is in idle. Fair enough he got the car to me. The dealer who sold the car started doing initial check ups putting in fuel injector cleaner and that still didnt work. And then the car was bought back again to the seller for the repair. The turbo seals had gone causing oil being pushed to burn and the smoke was due to the burning of the oil. The sensor of the engine management system too had come up due to the smoke.

This episode took 3 weeks to settle. I got the car back yesterday evening with the receipt and a bill of £620/-. The seller has agreed to put half the share of the cost as the issue was found the next day of purchase. So B has to shell in another £310/-. I totally understand how B should feel when the car gave an issue right after the purchase and shelling another £310/-. I totally agree. But what I expect them to understand is that I didnt do it. And I am a communications engineer and not an automobile engineer. I wouldnt guarantee anything about the car and I cant inspect the car 100%.

Yesterday A called me up and started shouting at me - telling me to sell the car and this car has been a great deal of headache etc. I was surprised beyond any explanation when he started shouting on me. By far, I think I should have shouted on him as he had bought all the bad luck on to me.

But still I didnt shout on him respecting his age and I didnt think it worth while to talk to him. Is he worth talking to? Later he sent me SMS saying he apologizes for all the introductions but I personally think "Thank You" & "Sorry" are the cheapest words that can be used. So he was using the later. :-).

Over all the car seems to be fixed as there was no smoke and there is still a minor sensor that needs to be replaced as the temperature seems to be dropping.

Overall, please! I earnestly request you all not to buy cars for friends. Instead help your own family or spend that time with family. It is worth it.

So according to me, in this context stupidity could be any of the following:
- Buying cars for friends
- Getting involved in deals with friends
- Car purchases for friends

I will keep you all posted on what happens next, So stay tuned!

PS: My close mates know their names. I havent named them here on the web as I do not want to go down that level. But I definitely want to share my experience that is useful to everyone. Everyone planning to buy a car for a friend should read this post.

andLinux | Linux on Windows

2008-06-21T17:17:00.000-07:00

In my other post I have mentioned about how it is still a bit of struggle to work with Ubuntu as you badly miss applications that run only on Windows. In the same post I had expressed my pain towards lack of GoogleTalk voice on Ubuntu.

I have found another version of Linux "andLinux" with which I and my wife have found peace finally. For those who are new, andLinux is a linux like system based on Ubuntu distribution, running on Windows and it is quite easy to install and use. It runs like another windows application and one can easily use windows applications too parallely.

For those of you continuously haunted by viruses, please install andLinux and then run firefox browser from andLinux. To upgrade to Firefox 3.0, I just did update my entire andLinux distribution to Ubuntu 8.04 (andLinux by default comes with Ubuntu 7.10).

For more information, please visit: http://www.andlinux.org/

Update 1:
I was going through the installation process for my friend and he had a couple of issues. I wanted to uninstall the complete thing and go through the complete installation again. When I tried installing again, I got the issue of Gtk-warning: cannot open display:.

I tried reading several posts on the internet trying various things from disabling and enabling TAP-Linux ports etc. but nothing worked. So I decided to do the work around described below:

From the windows command prompt I located the Xming.exe file and typed the following command:

Xming.exe :0 -multiwindow

Then from the andLinux window, I started which ever application I liked. Woohoo it works.

So saved a lot of hassle for me. Hope this helps someone pulling his hair.

Ubuntu 8.04, My New Love

2008-05-18T17:11:00.000-07:00

This is the latest Open Source distribution that I am trying currently after hearing a lot from others. I had to move from Solaris distribution to this one as there were a huge bunch of desktop applications that were not running on the Solaris. The ones that I was missing were Google Picasa & Google Desktop search - the two applications that I cannot imagine living without.

And Ubuntu was the most recommended application. I do not regret moving over to Ubuntu - firstly for its great windows like appeal and almost all the applications that I need are there.

A few of the glitches that are hitting me hard are:

PDF documents when opened are causing the system to hang
Terminal executions like trying to build Adobe Flex's sample application hanged the system for 30 minutes and system didnt recover at all.

What I like:

The MAC effects that I had once most desired are there.
The automatic system updates icon is just like windows and does its job in a clean way.
The recovery feature worked well when I tried it out.

I feel Linux is almost there.

Google Talk:
This is now working with Empathy installed. For installation, please search for empathy in my blog for the link.

Firefox:

Firefox for some reason kept hanging the system after running for quite sometime. I read loads of google pages and even disabled IPV6. But that didnt help. Finally I am running Flock a new browser based completely on Firefox. And I find it very cool and interesting. Visit http://www.flock.com/ for more details.

I shall keep you all posted on the other findings that I have. Not sure how long this post would go then :).

Indian Embassy in the UK

2008-02-28T12:46:00.000-08:00

Embassy address:
High Commission of India
India House
Aldwych
London
WC2B 4NA

Phone Number: Dont try calling them. There will never be any response.

Today I was at the Indian Embassy in London to get additional booklet for my passport. My passport ran out of blank pages due to my HEAVY business travel. Note that my earlier visit was rejected as there were still 4 blank pages remaining. The personnel collecting the application forms told me to come back after exhausting the blank pages. What a crap?

After the earlier experience I had this huge reticence to go there again. But I had to when the border check and immigration personnel at Germany told me that they had no space to stamp the entry seal. And I need visas to other countries too for my business travel.

For those of you who dont know me personally, I am recently married and the previous passport didnt have my spouse's name included. So I was cautious and intelligent enough to carry my marriage certificate with me. When I reached there, I found another person in my same situation who had got rejected due to lack of marriage certificate and wife's passport. Ok I didnt have my wife's passport but when my turn came neither was I asked for my wife's passport nor the marriage certificate. So there are no hard and fast rules. It all depends on which counter you land up on with your application. However, I am yet to collect my passport. So I am still waiting for any unexpected surprises.

Other friends who have visited before have told about other horrific experiences which I am listing down below:

A lady who had gone to get her husband's last name included in the passport for name change got her new passport with exactly the same name as before :-). So she had to fight but in the end she had to end up with the same passport with observation written that she is married and her last name is changed (which was mentioned there).
With the same set of documents, a person who got rejected earlier got his application accepted.

Other points that I noted there in the embassy that I particularly hated is:
People handling citizens of other countries like British were using an electronic coupon number displaying machine but this system was not in place for Indian citizens. Indian citizens irrespective of their coupon numbers had to stand in the queue and wait for their turn to come up. What a shame and disappointment!

Well after reading this long, I recommend all the people intending to visit the embassy not to waste time searching the website for the list of documents to carry. I have tried and there is no link there. I had found a link when I had referred to the website couple of months ago. Now the link is missing and with magic it can appear again. Try your luck but do not waste more than 5 minutes.

When you visit the embassy follow the below blind guidelines:

Carry exact change necessary for the visa fee. If you are unsure carry all required cash in the denomination of 10s and carry about 20 £1 coins so that you can pay any amount there.
Carry supporting documentation for every damn thing that you put on the application. From now on even if I have to approach the embassy, I shall carry all the documents of my wife, parents etc. Note that I am planning to carry all these documents when I am due to collect my passport in days time. Who knows they may say a document is missing :-).
Try to be more imaginative and carry all additional documentation that you may require.
For people willing to apply for Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI), please make sure you are there at the counter at 5:30am. Yeah I am in my senses. There are only 15 coupons that will be given to the individuals willing to apply for OCI. So if the first person standing in the queue eats up 5 then you can understand that your chances are very low. Thats the way it is. Out of curiosity I have asked the lady at the counter today if they entertain postal applications for OCI and she said yes. She tells me that the person has to send the photo-copies of the both the current nationality and the Indian passports along with the required fee. God knows if this works.

Disclaimer: Please use all the above information on your own risk. I do not take responsibility for correctness of what is written above. All the information is provided on an as is experience based basis.

Broadband Internet connection woes

2007-09-02T14:17:00.001-07:00

I had read on some broadband review pages the quote - "Tsssss..... Tsss...... Tiscali".

The same happened with me. I spent a big amount to shift my internet connection to Tiscali. Tiscali order was placed fine and then there was issue over the transfer of my broadband line to Tiscali due to a hold placed on my landline from my previous broadband provider.

So apparently BT rejected Tiscali's line transfer order. Tiscali's system is so crap that it did not support re-submitting of a rejected order. I am not sure what they are using to run their system. Is it SAP or anything else? I am not sure. I finally had to go to AOL Broadband and I am now happy. Atleast they did everything so professionally and I am glad I got a 50 GBP worth wireless router free!

So there is broadband at home.

Bio-Fuel

2007-03-08T01:48:00.000-08:00

Further to my earlier post about future fuel, here is something new about Bio-Fuel.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070307/lf_nm/renewable_energy_hunger_dc

I am just wondering if farmers will stop growing rice and start growing fuel crops. I am sure if the fuel will become cheaper, it might cost equal to rice and then it must be the same to grow rice and fuel :-). I am sure future generations have much more to see in the developing world.

Kudos to the human brain and kudos to people behind this program.

Universal Money

2007-02-16T14:32:00.000-08:00

These days for Indians living abroad there are just too many options to transfer money home from abroad. There are too many interesting websites like www.remit2india.com which do the job. Then there are banks too on the other hand offering brilliant exchange rates to customers, offering goodies like free transfers to their accounts abroad. Name any international bank like CitiBank, HSBC or any nationalized Indian Bank that is doing business abroad like State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda everywhere there is a big thing about this easy, free money transfers.

I have been sending money to India using Citibank's free facility. Now Citibank UK is charging its customers about 10 GBP per month to maintain an account with them. In turn they provide all the insurances and free transfers to India too. The question is - does anyone like me require all such insurances? The answer definitely is a NO. That is the reason I am planning to shift my NRI (Non Resident Indian) account to a different bank.

Now lets look at this subject a little deeper from my perspective:
Lets say I send money from account in UK with Citibank to an account in India with Citibank. In other words, all my money is still with Citibank effectively. So Citibank has my money to expand its business. When I move away from Citibank it means all that money or say a customer is going to another bank.

Further in the transaction Citibank (like any other bank) also makes money by flat rate i.e. the exchange rate they provide for the transaction. So the so called free transaction isnt really a FREE transaction.

Well Citibank might come and say to me that they provide an option of not paying 10GBP a month by simply shifting to a access only account. With this account if I need to transfer money home, I need to pay an amount of 20GBP per such transaction. Hmm....!!!

Anyways, I have made up my mind to move all my funds to another bank. Citibank might not be bothered with loss of one such customer. In UK to my knowledge most of them having accounts with Citibank are people who are foreigners here in the UK like people from USA, Canada and India. So will all the Non UK customers shift out from Citibank? I will leave this option.

If someone disagrees with my thoughts please leave your comments with name and address.

Future Fuel Technology

2007-01-28T07:52:00.000-08:00

One thing that I really like about USA is that they really invest in technology. Almost every today's inventions are from USA. This is the only reason that I think USA is where it is now.

As I was reading in book by Robert T Kiyosaki and Donald Trump - it is a true fact that as the fuel prices keep increasing the economies will continue to shrink. Henceforth, it is essentially important that countries (actually governments) keep investing in search for an alternative cheap, safe fuel.

This latest invention about the Hydrogen fuel seems to be a very cheap alternative to costly oil and a good direction towards reducing green house gases. Here is a link that I found on this topic - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4438732545348204352

As we further talk on this topic of fuel prices, I found another website that can help people in the UK find cheaper fuel pumps closer to their homes - www.petrolprices.com